STARKVILLE — Sam Purcell talked earlier this week about needing Mississippi State to put together four complete quarters. Early on in Southeastern Conference play, the third quarter was the Bulldogs’ Achilles heel; more recently, MSU has struggled to open games and establish itself in the first quarter.
Thursday night brought a new kind of inconsistency. The Bulldogs, after scoring 29 points in the third period, were held to five in the fourth quarter as Kentucky scored the game’s final 19 points. The result was a 78-68 defeat for MSU, the third straight loss for Purcell and company and one that sends the Bulldogs creeping back toward dangerous NCAA Tournament bubble territory.
“Real hard to swallow,” Purcell said. “First and foremost, it starts on the free throw line. This is another game where the opposing team is in the bonus. We’re a great transition team, and when the game slows down, it’s not good for us. People can load the box. For us to go 6-for-18 from the 3-point line makes it really hard because if you’re going to pinch in on (Jessika Carter) and throw two at her, you have to knock down some outside shots.”
The disastrous quarter for MSU (20-8, 7-6 SEC) began innocently enough — Debreasha Powe, who had not made a 3-pointer in two weeks entering Thursday, hit her third of the night to put the Bulldogs ahead by 10. Carter’s layup with six minutes remaining gave her 20 points, and she finished with 20 rebounds as well, but the hosts would never score again.
Turnovers were a big part of MSU’s undoing. The Bulldogs coughed the ball up nine times over the final 10 minutes, and with their shots not falling from deep, they kept trying to force the ball inside to Carter, and the Wildcats’ defense was keying on exactly that.
“We knew we had the hot hand and we weren’t making outside shots, so we went to a lot of situations where we could try to get (Carter) the ball,” Purcell said. “Some of those turnovers happened like they did at the end because of that.”
The outside shots were falling early on for Kentucky (11-16, 4-9), and particularly for Saniah Tyler, who came off the bench and was 4-for-4 from deep in the opening quarter and 6-for-8 overall for a game-high 22 points. With MSU forced to give Tyler extra attention, Ajae Petty got more favorable matchups inside, and she finished with 20 points and 12 boards.
The Bulldogs trailed by nine late in the first half but scored the last eight points of the second quarter, six of them coming from Lauren Park-Lane. After struggling with turnovers in Sunday’s overtime loss at Ole Miss, Park-Lane had 13 points and six assists Thursday and did not turn the ball over once.
MSU carried that momentum into the second half, extending the run to 17 straight points to go ahead by eight. After the Wildcats rallied to trim the margin to a single point, the Bulldogs closed the third quarter on a 15-7 spurt, with Park-Lane’s 3-point play just ahead of the buzzer restoring their lead to nine.
“We had a point there in the third quarter where Powe got hot, things started going, they got out of it and went to man (defense), and we were able to get a run,” Purcell said. “But again, for us to go 6-for-18 (from 3-point range), I just thought it really messed up what we were trying to do offensively.”
Tyler’s sixth 3-pointer of the night gave Kentucky the lead for good with just over three minutes remaining, and things only continued to spiral downward from there for MSU. After shooting 63.2 percent (12-for-19) in the third, the Bulldogs made just two of 10 field goals in the fourth and did not get to the free throw line once in that fateful final quarter.
MSU is back on the road Sunday afternoon to battle Alabama. Purcell was hopeful that his team will be healthier by then — Jerkaila Jordan and Darrione Rogers were both battling illnesses, and assistant coach Michelle Clark-Heard was also sick and was absent from the Bulldogs’ bench Thursday night.
“That’s why you only saw 12 minutes out of (Rogers) tonight,” Purcell said. “(Jordan) was so tired at the end, she couldn’t even finish. And that’s a kid who usually can go 39 or 40 minutes. So my biggest focuses right now are ‘don’t lose your spirit, let’s get healthy, and then most importantly, let’s find a way in a quick turnaround.’”
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